


Imagine Me and Mew

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Series: A Mewment Like This [3]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Confused Neil, Law Student!Andrew, M/M, References to Backstory, Second Date, bad googling, but what's a date, more lawyer jokes, really some things should never be googled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 07:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14744294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: Neil enjoyed getting coffee (it wasn't even coffee!) with his new friend Andrew.  His coworkers see it a little differently.  Neil has an existential crisis.





	Imagine Me and Mew

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to @tntwme for the beta! Any remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> Neil starts to consider his sexuality for the first time, so there's that.

Neil slid into his seat and sighed at the enormous lineup of material to translate that had materialized in his inbox over the weekend.  Jean glanced up at him with concern but didn’t comment.  Neil sighed again, louder, when Sara popped around the corner.  
  
“How are my favorite linguists?” she practically shouted.  Both Neil and Jean cringed.  
  
“Fine,” they chorused.  
  
Sara leaned against Neil’s desk.  “How was your weekend?  Do anything fun?”  
  
Neil shrugged.  “Um, King got a urinary tract infection, so I spent the morning at the vet’s.  Then I had coffee with someone before I went to trivia night.”  
  
“Which, damn, Neil, you’re terrible at trivia,” Jeremy said, appearing on the other side of Jean.  He always did that, appearing out of thin air; Neil wondered if he secretly had trapdoors in the floor or something.  Or an invisibility cloak like that kid in that weird movie about wizards that Nicky had bullied him into watching.  
  
“No shit.  I told you that.  I keep telling you that.”  
  
“Wait, back up, you had coffee with someone?” Sara practically squealed.  “Anyone we know?”  
  
Mr. Rheman’s timely arrival provided Neil with a reprieve until lunch, but he knew the whole crew would descend on him for details.  They did that every time he spoke two words to someone, even half the people he was interpreting for.  It made no sense to him, why they cared about every simple interaction.  
  
The only reprieve from the tedious work—Mandarin was still his weakest written language and of course Jean was useless with it—was the text he received from Andrew.  _free 9 tonight or 6 tomorrow_    
  
He texted back _either fine_ and shoved his phone back in his jacket.  Half the time he’d forget to eat dinner until ten or eleven at night anyway, only thinking about it when King started screaming at him for her own food.  
  
It felt like he had barely made a dent in the queue when Jean tapped him on the shoulder for lunch.  He blinked away the fuzziness of four hours looking at his computer screen and checked his phone.  Andrew had sent him a restaurant name for them to meet at that night.  At least he might have a little time to look up more lawyer jokes.  
  
He had almost forgotten Sara’s shark-like interest until he approached the table in the lunch room and saw her looking at him with wide, sharp eyes.  Stifling his desire to pick another table, he dropped into the chair across from her.  Jean and Jeremy sat on either side of him.  Surrounded.    
  
“So, tell us all about yesterday,” Sara said, twirling her fork in her noodles.  
  
“I told you already, I took King to the vet.  I got coffee.  Well, actually, I got a smoothie, then went to trivia night.”  
  
“You said you met someone for coffee.”  
  
“Yeah?”  Neil didn’t understand the emphasis she put on _met_.  
  
“Who?”  
  
Neil still didn’t get why she cared, nor why Jeremy and even Jean were so attentive.  He took a bite of his sandwich to buy himself time to puzzle it out but was unsuccessful.  “Nobody you know, I met him at the vet and we decided to get coffee.”  
  
“Ah!” Sara said, pressing her hand to her heart.  “Did you hear that, Jeremy?  Our baby boy is growing up.”  
  
Jeremy grinned.  “Good for you, Neil.”  
  
“I still don’t understand that nickname,” Neil said, looking between them.  “And I drink coffee every day, I don’t see why it’s such a big deal.  Jesus, it wasn’t even coffee.”  
  
Jean huffed, a tiny sound, and Neil shifted his glare to him.  Usually Jean was the one he could count on to dismiss the idiocy of the other two, but even he looked amused.  “It’s not the coffee, you fool,” he said in French, leaving Neil even more confused.    
  
“We’re just happy you went out on a date,” Jeremy said, taking pity on him.  
  
“It wasn’t a date,” Neil said, “it was a smoothie.”  
  
Sara and Jeremy exchanged looks.  “Uh, did he know that it wasn’t a date?” Jeremy asked.  
  
“Of course!  Why the hell would he think it was a date?  We just sat around drinking and mocking each other for an hour.”  
  
“Oh, god,” Sara said, putting her head in her hands.  “Oh, god, oh, god, that poor guy.”  
  
Neil just looked between them with a sinking feeling in his gut.  He didn’t know why Andrew would have thought it was a date; why he would even have been interested in such a thing with someone with Neil’s fucked up face, but… _I doubt they’re looking at your scars_.  “Shit.”  _Shitshitshitshitshit_.  
  
Jeremy immediately picked up on his distress.  “Maybe he didn’t.  Walk us through it, how did it happen?  You said you met at the vet?”  
  
“Yeah,” Neil said, drawing out the syllable.  “Um, there was a misunderstanding so this asshole vet assistant pulled us both into a room and while we were waiting we talked a little.  Then the assistant made a snarky comment about King’s name and I, well…”  
  
“You did what you do,” Sara supplied.  
  
“Right.  Anyway, he joined in on my side.  So then we decided to get coffee.”  
  
“How, exactly?”  Neil looked at Jeremy blankly.  “Like, while you were waiting, you made some comment about needing coffee and he was like, yeah, me too?”  
  
“I gave him my number,” Neil said, feeling the heat rise in his face.  “He texted me after, inviting me for a drink.  I told him I don’t drink, so he suggested coffee.”  
  
Sara laughed while Jeremy patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.  “It’ll be fine.”  Jeremy’s voice indicated it would not be fine.  “Do you like him?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Neil said, hearing his own agitation and drawing a slow breath to quiet it.  “I mean, he’s funny, and he’s smart.”  He shrugged.  
  
“But is he hot?” Sara asked.  
  
Neil had absolutely no idea how one even decided that.  Were there some sort of set guidelines that pushed someone into the “hot” category?  He wondered if there was a website that explained this sort of stuff.  He’d have to google it when he got home.  
  
“Alvarez!  Knox!” Rheman barked through the lunch room door, coming to his rescue for the second time that day.  “Stop torturing the new guy!”  
  
“I’m not that new,” Neil said, but everybody ignored him.  
  
“Why are you singling us out?” Sara asked.  “Jean’s here too!”  
  
“Because Moreau is the only mature one out of the lot of you.  Get back to work!”  
  
“Hear that?” Jean said, looking haughty as only a true Frenchman can.  “I’m the mature one.”  
  
“Fuck off,” Sara said, setting the rest of them laughing as they threw their trash away and headed back to their desks.  “And you owe me ten bucks, Frenchie!”  Jean flipped her off.  Neil wondered what the bet had been.  
  
After work he headed to the gym.  Nicky was there, of course, greeting everyone and keeping an eye out for who needed spotters or help with the equipment.  His whole face lit up when he saw Neil and he jogged over.  “Hey!  How’s my favorite new cat parent?”  
  
Neil managed to keep from rolling his eyes.  Nicky constantly asked after King, which he supposed made sense since he was responsible for foisting her—and her gender-bending name—upon him in the first place.  “I’m fine.  King has a urinary tract infection, though.”  
  
“Oh, poor kitty.”  
  
“She’s feeling better.  I took her to the vet.”  
  
Nicky ruffled his hair.  He always tended to do that, even when it was all sweaty and gross.  “Of course you did, I knew you’d take good care of her.”  
  
Neil got on the treadmill and started running, keeping an easy pace for the first mile then upping the speed.  It was one of the few guaranteed ways to clear his head, but after eight miles at a pretty good pace he still didn’t know what to do about that night.  And though he was pretty sure Nicky would be all too happy to help, he also knew that absolutely, without a doubt, he would rather trust strangers on the internet than Nicky with this type of question.  
  
Managing to escape the gym without further hair-ruffling or questions, he went home and sat with King on his lap and his laptop open on the table.  Staring at the open browser screen, he tapped his fingers on his thigh for a moment until the cat decided he was trying to play and smacked his hand.    
  
He typed _What makes a guy hot_ into the search engine.  Over ninety million results.  He clicked on a few, and only ended up more confused.  Pictures of shirtless men holding kittens, comments about “quiet confidence” and strange things like “rolled up sleeves” and “being able to cook.”  Then there was the stuff that Neil didn’t even know what to do with, like “being gentle in bed” and “getting a boner in Target.”    
  
Neil was not cut out for this, that much was clear.  
  
He checked his phone, half-hoping Andrew would bail on him but no such luck.  He fed King and  left, giving himself plenty of time to get lost because the one-way streets in this city followed no obvious logic.  The end result was he sat in his car for twenty minutes listening to Tagalog podcasts before he saw Andrew walking towards the entrance.  Breathing in for a count of four, out for a count of four, he joined him.  
  
“No sweatpants today I see,” Andrew greeted him.  
  
Neil looked down at his suit pants.  He had changed back into his work suit after showering at the gym and hadn’t thought to change again, just left his tie and jacket on the back of his couch.  He looked back at Andrew, lost.    
  
“Come on,” Andrew said with laughter in his voice, pushing through the door.  
  
It was kind of like a burger joint, but nicer.  They ended up seated in a booth in the back corner of the restaurant, Andrew claiming the bench against the wall so Neil’s back was to the rest of the room.  At least they were right next to an emergency exit, but he was barely able to restrain the cringe when the waitress appeared out of nowhere.  
  
Her smile faltered for a second when she noticed Neil’s scars but she hitched it back on quickly.  Somehow Neil was not surprised that Andrew ordered a milkshake.  An alcoholic milkshake, but still.    
  
Neil looked furtively at Andrew, still trying to figure out how one could determine “hotness”.  Andrew had a cat; it wasn’t a kitten, but maybe that counted?  His sleeves weren’t rolled up, but the waitress’s had been and Neil definitely didn’t think it was anything special.  They were just arms.  He didn’t know if Andrew could cook, and there was no way he was going to ask about the boner thing…  
  
The easy rapport of the day before was gone, and Neil didn’t know how to find it.  Andrew didn’t seem interested in making conversation for the sake of hearing himself talk, and Neil didn’t know what to say.  How did you ask someone if you were on a date?  
  
Andrew was watching him with what could have either been concern or irritation.  Neil flinched involuntarily; he hadn’t even realized his leg was doing the bouncing thing again, vibrating the whole table.  He saw Andrew’s eyes darken as a result.  “Sorry.  I, um.”  There was no good way to explain this, either his current nerves or the fact that he had been beaten as a child for that habit.  “Sorry.”  
  
“Do you not want to be here?” Andrew asked.    
  
It was entirely possible that in his twenty five years on the planet Neil had never met someone quite as blunt as this man, yet he still felt like he was missing pages of subtext.  “No, I do.  I just…”  He rubbed his face, another nervous habit.  “I don’t know what I’m doing.”  
  
Andrew’s mouth twitched as if he were suppressing a smile.  “You astonish me.”  
  
“Oh, go to hell,” Neil said, feeling the whispers of a smile himself.  
  
“It’s entirely possible I’m already there.  What exactly is the problem here?”  
  
It suddenly occurred to Neil that he had absolutely no good way out of this.  If Andrew wasn’t gay, he could end up with a royally pissed, very short but very muscle-y man across the table from him.  If he was, Neil was likely about to hurt his feelings by being completely unsure if they were dating or if he wanted them to be.  And if he ran, well, that would just be embarrassing.  Plus he might never stop, and he was pretty sure his FBI handlers would have something to say about that.  
  
He settled for the truth.  “My coworkers informed me that our trip to the cafe yesterday could be considered a date.”  
  
Andrew’s expression did not change from mild amusement.  “Oh?  And what did they say about this?”  He gestured to the restaurant.  
  
“I didn’t tell them.”  
  
“Why not?”  Still no change in expression but there was a tinge of venom in his tone.  
  
“Because they were already way too excited and I didn’t want to hear it when I don’t even know if you’re gay.  Fuck, I don’t even know if I’m gay.”  He suddenly remembered Sara crowing that Jean owed her money.  “Oh, shit.”  
  
“What new revelations are coming forth?” Andrew asked.  
  
“That’s what they were betting on.”  
  
They were interrupted by the arrival of Andrew’s spiked milkshake and Neil’s iced tea.  Neil gulped half of it.  
  
“Who was betting on what?” Andrew asked once the waitress was well out of earshot.  
  
“Sara and Jean.  After they informed me you probably thought yesterday was a date, Sara said Jean owed her ten bucks.  I bet they were betting on whether or not I was gay.”  
  
“Your coworkers need help.  Or a hobby that does not involve betting on the lives of humans.”  Andrew waited for a moment, then went on.  “This is only a date if you want it to be one.  You said yesterday you were trying to make friends, I thought that was pretty clear.  But even if it wasn’t, that doesn’t matter.  If it’s not a yes, it’s a no.”  
  
Neil thought about that.  He wondered if it was a general dating rule, or an Andrew rule.  “That makes it a lot less complicated.”  
  
Andrew did that thing where he arched one eyebrow but didn’t comment.  Neil wondered what it was like to have one’s eyebrows trained to speak for you.  Maybe it was a lawyer thing.  After all, it could sway a jury but would be impossible for the court reporter to transcribe.  _The prosecution raised an eyebrow, conveying the stupidity of the defense_.  He pushed the whole thing away as ludicrous.     
  
Neil somehow managed to get his brain online again and asked about the seminar.  A conventional enough question, but Andrew answered him anyway, going on at some length about the horrors of bad lecturers and asshole classmates.  He managed to convey a great deal about the individuals with very little change in facial expression, just by subtle shifts of his voice and the angle of his mouth.  It was oddly engaging.  
  
They didn’t leave until the restaurant practically kicked them out, vacuuming aggressively in their vicinity.  He wished he hadn’t already used his best lawyer jokes; he wasn't able to think of a good one when they said good-bye.  King gave him an enthusiastic greeting, wrapping around his legs as if he hadn’t already fed her, and he picked her up and nestled his face in her fur.  He got ready for bed with her perched on his shoulder, her little body vibrating with the force of her purr.  
  
He set the alarm on his phone, then hovered over Andrew’s latest text, debating.  Finally, he typed quickly and hit send.  
  
_How do lawyers sleep?_  
  
It took a few minutes before the phone chimed.  
  
_First I lie on one side then I lie on the other.  Talk tomorrow idiot_  
  
Tomorrow.  He had never gone to bed looking forward to the next day; it was just another thing to get through, to survive.  But in the dim light from the streets coming through the blinds, he fell asleep with a faint smile on his lips. 

**Author's Note:**

> The response to this series has been really encouraging! Thanks for all your comments, they give me life!


End file.
